Jenivix - What you know and what you feel

What you know and what you feel.

Rain.  It always rains here.

Jim Kirk didn’t remember a day when it did not rain in the morning in this city on the coast.  It was misty and grey and through his apartment window the dull, steely sky was perfectly reflected by the dreary concrete buildings which stretched as far as the eye could see.

He went through his morning rituals, bathroom, clothes, coffee, breakfast.  No doubt in his mind that thousands of other people would be doing the same thing as they had always done.  Get up, dress, work, sleep; an unending cycle of drudgery.  No doubt that it had always been so, would always be so.

Something is wrong, he thought as he passed through the threshold and into the corridor.  He looked back into the apartment, but all was how he always left it.  All was quiet, and still.  Jim Kirk locked his apartment door behind him, fumbling the keys slightly he thought something is wrong, but nothing was wrong.  He looked around at nobody, all was as it always had been, but the feeling of wrongness chilled him to the core.

Jim Kirk knew no fear, nobody knew fear, fear was forgotten a long time ago.  Nothing changed here, all was as it should be.  Why would anyone be frightened of that?  

…

However, if he knew fear, he would have named it so.

It had stopped raining, but the smell of it hung in the air.  Jim Kirk looked around and saw others like him making their way out of their homes and onto the streets.  They were little more than ghosts to him, grey shapes with indistinct faces.  He indifferently supposed that they thought of him the same way.  He felt like he should care, but his thoughts felt foggy if pushed too far in that direction.  He backed off from that train of thought, the fog grew lighter, and his thoughts cleared as he thought of the monotony of the days ahead.  He kept his feeling of growing unease just on the periphery of his thoughts, grasped his briefcase a little tighter and continued his commute to work.

Jim Kirk checked his watch, he was exactly on time, just as he always was.  He wondered briefly why he even had a watch in this world where everything worked as it should.  Perhaps it was just a hangover from before everything was always as it should be.  Perhaps it was because he looked a bit longer than usual at his watch, that he didn’t habitually move out the way of a man wearing a hat walking towards him who had also looked at his watch.  Jim Kirk felt a jolt of adrenaline as he realised he was about to collide with someone and looked up at the stranger’s face.  The stranger whose response was somewhat muted (though bore all the markers of one suddenly startled) also looked up.

Gold met sable.

Life in a lifeless city.

A moment of clarity.

Suddenly desperate, Kirk grabbed the man’s arm and asked

“Do I… know you?”

The other man, tore his dark eyes from Kirk’s light ones and stared down at the fingers locked on his bicep.  Usually he abhorred contact, mere accidental touches in his work place were an anathema to him, but this man’s desperate grasp was acceptable.  No, more than that; welcome.  With his right hand he touched the back of Kirk’s with the intention of lifting the man’s hand from his arm, but with the skin to skin contact came the knowledge that this world was indeed, wrong and that yes he knew this man.

“Jim… you are… Jim”.

Eye contact again.  Jim’s other hand came up to rest on his shoulder.

“Spock…” Kirk, a non-telepath gasped his companion’s name, still managing to smile despite the mental shock of the sudden telepathic contact.

“I think I’m going to quit my day job.”

Spock quirked a brow and took in his surroundings, their out of the ordinary display has attracted attention.  Some commuters had stopped to stare.

“Captain, we are drawing attention to ourselves, let us find somewhere less conspicuous”.

Kirk dropped his hands down, but not without a regretful, lingering touch of Spock’s palm.

“Correct as always mister Spock… I suppose I have to ask, your place or mine?”